Jim Clark's History Of The World

BRIEFING - JIM CLARK'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD

March 5, 1997|By Jim Clark of The Sentinel staff

ON THIS DATE in 1770 a group of British soldiers guarding the Boston customhouse shot at a crowd of hecklers. Five colonists were killed in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The first man killed in the attack was an escaped slave named Crispus Attucks.

In 1820 a group of New England missionaries arrived in Hawaii. They received a welcome from the king of Hawaii. The descendants of the missionaries would later overthrow the monarchy.

In 1923 Nevada and Montana passed the nation's first old-age pension laws. Montana provided $25 a month for anyone over 70.

In 1931 Jerrie Cobb was born. She became the first woman to pass the 75 qualifying examinations to become an astronaut and was one of three women recommended for the space program. In 1961 NASA rejected all three women.

In 1946 Winston Churchill made his historic Iron Curtain speech. Churchill was speaking in Fulton, Mo., when he said that an ''iron curtain'' had descended around Soviet Russia and the countries it controlled.

In 1953 Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died. He was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. One of his successors, Nikita Khrushchev, said, ''We never knew, when called to his office, if we'd ever see our families again. You know, people don't do their best work in that atmosphere.''

In 1960 Elvis Presley was discharged from the U.S. Army. . . . In 1982 actor John Belushi checked into the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles. While there he died of a drug overdose.